The attention of Canadian workers is all veered towards our most impactful trading partner, the United States of America, as the most contentious Presidential election seems to continue without end. Days after Americans closed the polls, tensions are high, and Canadian workers and business owners halt all decisions involving the United States until it is all over.
According to a 388Canada/Léger poll of over 1,500 Canadians, if given the choice between the two candidates, 84% of voters would pick the Democratic nominee for President. The statistic shows how Canadians wish for business to get back to normal, a normal Democratic candidate Joe Biden may represent.
During his first term, President Trump has demonstrated his “America First” strategy by renegotiating NAFTA to improve the USA’s trade position and has expressed a nationalist attitude towards immigration, causing concerns for many Canadians who either work across the border or conduct business there. However, as CBC business columnist Don Pittis puts it, the “America First” ideology could be sticking around even under a Biden Presidency. Americans have illustrated their preference for this ideology by electing then M. Trump in 2016 and have come out in droves to keep him for a second term in 2020.Either way, Canadian businesses face a period of additional uncertainty as American institutions settle the American presidential election. Adding to the stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this can increase the stress levels of your teams, impeding team effectiveness and productivity.
Assessments, Baselining, and Pulses
At www.cykometrix.com, we assess team members online to produce visual interactive reports that help team members see how stress could affect their effectiveness at work. We also take the data from all team members and produce a Team Health Report that shows a team’s effectiveness, potential climate, stress-induced personality clashes and more. The Canadian company also measures how team member’s behaviours may change when stress increases, like increases in counter productive work, quitting, reductions in organizational citizenship and changes in stress tolerance.
Using this information and its own custom 7 characteristics chart, Cykometrix measures exactly how effective a team member is, creates a baseline psychometric profile for your team and individual team members. The reports then recommend individual and team trainings that will increase the team’s effectiveness. This sets a baseline, a Pulse, that teams can take later to see changes in team behaviours, effectiveness and climate and track changes in time.
Using Pulses, noting the surrounding circumstances for each Pulse, like the uncertainties around the American election, customers can assess how things have changed after a few months pass. After a few Pulses, the interactive reports would then show the difference in probable behaviours, cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence and risk factors instigated by the recommended training and the changes in circumstances, like improved business relations with the US, a COVID-19 vaccine etc.
This information is invaluable to human resource departments and decision-makers so they can decide how to spend training budgets, changing hiring policies, and make investments in their teams. The reports help teams better understand their stress reactions so leadership can develop better communications and methods to improve staff resilience.
Cykometrix’ interactive new candidate profile (Team Dynamics) tool and team reorganization tool (Team Evolution) are also available for managers who wish to ensure optimal team efficiency and team climate under their responsibility.
These services can serve organizational purposes to support today’s decisions, but become essential for entities to compete in these challenging times.